When the New York Liberty won the 2023 WNBA Commissioner’s Cup, Jonquel Jones was the MVP. And when the Liberty won the 2024 WNBA championship, Jones, again, was the MVP.
So, if New York is win the 2026 WNBA Commissioner’s Cup (7 p.m. ET, Prime Video), becoming the league’s first two-time Cup champs by defeating the Las Vegas Aces, just as they did in 2023, Jonquel, once again, has to be the MVP.
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Back in 2023, when the Liberty cruised to a nearly 20-point Cup-clinching victory over the Aces, Jones posted a monster 16-point and 15-rebound double-double, with seven of those boards coming on the offensive end.
In the 2024 Finals, which the Liberty won in the five games over the Minnesota Lynx, Jones averaged almost 18 points per game as she shot over 56 percent from the field and nearly 43 percent from 3, all while grabbing 7.6 boards per game. In the decisive overtime Game 5, she led New York with 17 points, with the Liberty outscoring the Lynx by a team-best 10 points in her minutes in the eventual five-point win.
In short, the Liberty go from good to great when Jones is at her best, and, fortunately for the Liberty fans, Jonquel has been at her best in the biggest moments.
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Tuesday night is the next opportunity for JJ to add to her moment-meeting resume. And New York, maybe more than ever, needs her to do so.
Although the Liberty defeated the Aces in the Commissioner’s Cup preview last Tuesday, going into Vegas and claiming the 87-76 win, they otherwise have been staggering through an uneven season, losing four of their last five games.
The adjustment to the Chris DeMarco era, made more challenging by injuries to and absences by key players, has been a bit of a roller coaster, with a three-game losing streak followed by an eight-game winning streak and, now, this current four-losses-in-five-games stretch.
Through all that volatility, Jones has been a source of stability, arguably compiling her most-productive season in a New York uniform.
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Playing in 19 of the Liberty’s 20 games, Jones is averaging 15.2 points per game, the most since her 2021 MVP-winning season with the Connecticut Sun. She’s leaned further into her stretch big identity, taking a career-high 4.7 3s per game and hitting 40 percent of them. All the while, she’s still getting after it on the glass, with 8.7 boards per game.
Despite the back-to-back losses, Jones is also coming off two of her louder games of the season, registering a season-high 26 points followed by 21 points.
After accepting a reduced role when she arrived in New York, Jones is now being relied on the show off the full suite of her skills on regular basis.
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An MVP-throwback performance from JJ is no longer the ceiling-raising boost it was when the Liberty earned trophies in 2023 and 2024, but, seemingly, a floor-establishing necessity.
This suggests that the lagging Liberty need more than just a JJ masterclass to edge the Aces to become the WNBA’s first two-time Cup champs.
Breanna Stewart, once so reliable on the biggest stage, needs to enter that scoring flow state that seems to have eluded her of late. Sabrina Ionescu, despite some ugly shooting percentages, has to hit her 3s at crucial moments. Betnijah Laney-Hamliton, struggling to find her place on this evolving Liberty, must come through with clutch, two-way play. The same applies to Leonie Fiebich.
Will DeMarco primarily trust that title-winning core on Tuesday?
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Or, will the players that the new head coach has opted to empower, from Marine Johannès to Pauline Astier to Han Xu, be the linchpins against Las Vegas? Satou Sabally, unfortunately, won’t have the opportunity to answer the call, as her run of poor luck has continued with another concussion.
It’s a bit odd to feel so uncertain about a Liberty squad that, since the super team came together in 2023, has been a paragon of reliability.
That’s why it comes back to JJ.
She’s New York’s rock, trusted to provide the two-way impact demanded for the Liberty to, at least temporarily, escape their ups and downs and emerge as Cup champs.
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What do you think? Is Jonquel the key for the Liberty in the Cup final? Or, do you have your eyes on another Liberty player, seeing her as the X factor for New York’s Cup chances? Share your predictions in the comments.
